Lloyd Forster

Having participated in the block 1 training and the component sessions. The question is how am I going to contribute to the transformation of teaching and learning as a practitioner as well as make an impact on a specific group of pupils. before I explore the range of hardware and software provided I feel it is best that I have from the onset an idea of how I am going to address three main questions:

1. Which pupils?
2. What are the barriers?
3. How might their potential be unblocked?

My transformation is going to specifically address the above questions as follows:

1. I am going to work with a top set of year 9 pupils at Northumberland Park Community school who will be starting the Gateway Science Course (GCSE) during the summer term
2. The data and evidence shows that one of the main barriers is literacy in science
3. I intend to work with the teacher and pupils to release their potential through the use of blended media in the context of science in the news. (This is a main component of the new science specifications and requires a high degree of literacy on the part of the pupils and the teachers)

I will be preparing a proposal for the Head of science/KS4 coordinator ( I will put this on the fronter site when done)

Inorder for me to make effective use of the resources provided I need to have a plan for how I am going to work my way through the resources. I would not want be distracted by them although it would be quite tempting to become quite engrossed in some of them. Therefore I Have decided that my list of things to learn and become competent at includes:

Podcasting -  GarageBand (which we started training on at the CLC). I have already been through the Atomic learning tutorials.

DigiMemo- It has become a routine part of my note making and planning. What I need to be doing now is having a system for storage and retrieval. I see the use of the board as part of my planning and storyboarding (doodling! etc)

Crazy Talk-  This piece of software that makes pictures ‘talk’ should be quite captivating for pupils and teachers (Found on the windows PC)

Keynote as alternative to MicroSoft PowerPoint especially the smaller file sizes it results in.

Last but not least making use of BlueTooth to send educational files to teachers and pupils.

The MacBook certainly provides for me a chance and opportunity to learn about the Mac platform which is much talked about but with limited funds one is most likely to opt for the dominant platform. In the few days of working with the Mac the sheer style and beauty of the presentation is in sharp contrast to the windows environment.

My main task therefore is to be competent in the above by completing the homework which was:

See how many products we can make using as many of the software as possible (for uploading onto the Fronter/edublog sites)

The presentation by Fronter and the system for networking learners was for me remnicient of the managed learning environment pioneered by the Open University- Their ‘FirstClass’ system is excellent: That was back in 2000 AD!

Comments always welcome

Lloyd 

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